"God Has Not Given Us A Spirit Of Fear"

[Voyager]

As many people here know, I rarely ever quote Scriptures on this forum. But recently someone stated that they were fearful of coming onto this forum, so I thought it might be a good topic to bring up for discussion. I would hate to see fear steal anyone away from the healing and recovery that is here for them.

Fear and guilt are the two primary forces that work together to create a spiritually abusive environment. Last week I posted something on guilt. Fear is actually the more powerful of the two. Fear is what hooks us into the spiritual abuse to begin with. While we are in a spiritually abusive group, we hear messages of fear over and over, telling us that if we leave "God's will" (aka the church) that Satan will take over our families, finances, relationships, etc. We are taught that if we leave "the covering" of the abusive leader, Satan will destroy us. This is how we get locked into a spiritually abusive relationship, and it doesn't stop there. The entire time we were in these groups, we were being continually programmed with fear. This is why many of us found ourselves bound with fear, panic attacks, anxiety, and even depression after leaving the group. It can take years to get deprogrammed of this fear.

I don't believe we should be scared of Satan ruling this forum. I am so glad to be free from fear-based religion, and a lot of my recovery happened right here on this forum. For 12 long years I was programmed to live in fear that Satan could strike at any time and wreck everything in my life. I was taught to stay away from "the world" and anything that wasn't Christian. However, all that did was create fear and anxiety in me. It took a LONG time for me to get healed of this fear, and I am sure that I still have a ways to go yet. When I first escaped my former abusive church, I was so scared to be cast out into "the world" with no "covering" that I had panic attacks. I was bound with anxiety. I looked at the world as if it were Satan's playground, and I feared that I would be vulnerable to his attacks now that I had left my former pastor's "authority and protection".

Is that how God wants us to live? Did He give us a spirit of fear? No!!! 1st John 4:18 tells us:

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

I don't think anyone needs to fear being on this forum. On the contrary, this forum has actually helped me heal and recover from the fear that was instilled in my heart due to the teachings of fear-based religion. Romans 8:15 tells us that, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of sonship." We are His people! He will never leave us or forsake us. 2nd Timothy 1:7 tells us:

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

God has given us power over Satan, power over fear, power over hatred, and power over spiritual abuse. This doesn't mean that bad things won't happen, but it does mean that we don't have to live in fear of them happening!

This is a good, safe, and friendly place to find healing from spiritual abuse. At the same time, it may not be for everyone. There are many people here who share a lot of different styles of faith that all came from various denominations. It would be almost impossible for us all to believe the same way unless we appointed a spiritual dictator to enforce a specific belief system, and I don't think Jerry is up to the task (LOL!).

Any thoughts?

:cool:

[overcomer]

(voyager, please note my reply where your post was -on the other thread.)

and amen to quoting scripture - those are great ones! aren't we so glad we have written, inerrant Word of God to guide us.
:)
'night.

[overcomer]

voyager, also, you said that recently someone stated that they were fearful of coming onto this forum, where is that post? i would like to read it so i can understand what the poster was talking about in context.

[QueenKnitter]

It hit me recently. I was reading about the Polish Christians under the Soviet regime. How, for instance, Stalin created Nowa Huta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowa_Huta) -- a perfect Communist town with no church, of course! :rolleyes: But the people met to worship anyway -- in the town square. So instead of living in fear, they lived like they already had the freedom they wanted to have.

This has been my mantra as of late. <giant bag over my head> I hate that it's getting tested. Ugh.

QK

[mary]

As many people here know, I rarely ever quote Scriptures on this forum. But recently someone stated that they were fearful of coming onto this forum, so I thought it might be a good topic to bring up for discussion. I would hate to see fear steal anyone away from the healing and recovery that is here for them.

Fear and guilt are the two primary forces that work together to create a spiritually abusive environment. Last week I posted something on guilt. Fear is actually the more powerful of the two. Fear is what hooks us into the spiritual abuse to begin with. While we are in a spiritually abusive group, we hear messages of fear over and over, telling us that if we leave "God's will" (aka the church) that Satan will take over our families, finances, relationships, etc. We are taught that if we leave "the covering" of the abusive leader, Satan will destroy us. This is how we get locked into a spiritually abusive relationship, and it doesn't stop there. The entire time we were in these groups, we were being continually programmed with fear. This is why many of us found ourselves bound with fear, panic attacks, anxiety, and even depression after leaving the group. It can take years to get deprogrammed of this fear.

I don't believe we should be scared of Satan ruling this forum. I am so glad to be free from fear-based religion, and a lot of my recovery happened right here on this forum. For 12 long years I was programmed to live in fear that Satan could strike at any time and wreck everything in my life. I was taught to stay away from "the world" and anything that wasn't Christian. However, all that did was create fear and anxiety in me. It took a LONG time for me to get healed of this fear, and I am sure that I still have a ways to go yet. When I first escaped my former abusive church, I was so scared to be cast out into "the world" with no "covering" that I had panic attacks. I was bound with anxiety. I looked at the world as if it were Satan's playground, and I feared that I would be vulnerable to his attacks now that I had left my former pastor's "authority and protection".

Is that how God wants us to live? Did He give us a spirit of fear? No!!! 1st John 4:18 tells us:



I don't think anyone needs to fear being on this forum. On the contrary, this forum has actually helped me heal and recover from the fear that was instilled in my heart due to the teachings of fear-based religion. Romans 8:15 tells us that, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of sonship." We are His people! He will never leave us or forsake us. 2nd Timothy 1:7 tells us:

[/b]

God has given us power over Satan, power over fear, power over hatred, and power over spiritual abuse. This doesn't mean that bad things won't happen, but it does mean that we don't have to live in fear of them happening!

This is a good, safe, and friendly place to find healing from spiritual abuse. At the same time, it may not be for everyone. There are many people here who share a lot of different styles of faith that all came from various denominations. It would be almost impossible for us all to believe the same way unless we appointed a spiritual dictator to enforce a specific belief system, and I don't think Jerry is up to the task (LOL!).

Any thoughts?

:cool:

Dear Voyager,

"Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4.)

You're right that we should not be afraid of Satan gaining hold of this forum. "Where two or three are gathered, there is (Jesus Christ) among them..." (paraphrasing Matthew 18:20).

Satan can go no further than God allows him to go. He cannot take control of a child of God; he cannot do anything to us that God does not allow. And God does not allow anything to happen to us that results in our eternal harm. (Job 1:12; Romans 8; John 16-17; Ephesians 6, etc.) I have seen personally and quite literally that Satan cannot even cause my death before God's timing, for God is creating blood cells in me even as I type that "shouldn't," by all judgments of medical science, be created. Satan ultimately loses every time he attacks a child of God, and he hates that very idea. He knows he'll lose - but why do we often not? We need to take hold of John 14:27! He knows that his time is short (Revelation 12:12) and those who belong to the Lord cannot be afflicted by him for a long time. That's one reason that he acts - for a season - among and through foul, viperous, false occupiers of pulpits to hurt us. But he cannot ultimately separate us from Him to Whom we are already joined for eternity!

I confess that I am guilty of not just allowing God to be God (Psalm 46:10a), especially over the situation of my SA. How presumptuous and unbelieving I can be! "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief." (Mark 9:24.) All I can really do is drag my puny self to the foot of the cross, where only is there comfort and peace and joy!

I used to have panic attack after panic attack while in the church that I was thrown out of, for I couldn't stand to look at "pastor" up there in that pulpit, knowing what he'd done to me in "counseling" sessions on Thursday mornings and knowing the rotten things that he'd probably say to me, under his breath, at the fellowship luncheons that would follow. I have fewer panic attacks now, but they're not yet gone. They come mostly when I think about that snakepit or have to drive within a couple of miles of it. Eventually, I trust the Lord that I will be free of them, especially since I've just, by the Lord's grace, mercy, love and will, divested myself of my "friend" from that so-called church.

I pray for those who are "triggered" by Scripture here. I know what it feels like, for sometimes Scripture has triggered me, if a particular verse was one that "pastor" used against me, for example. But if we think of it this way, that God has written a love letter to us and that is His Word - even though it was used by someone controlled by the powers of darkness against us, again "for a season" - do we allow ourselves to get triggered and undone by God's infinitely precious love letter? No - as you, Voyager said, there are 1 John 4:18 and 2 Timothy 1:7 - and so many others as well. We need that precious Word. It's the air we breathe...

Love,

mary

[Willow]

It's the air we breathe...


Mary... you just reminded me of a worship song that I love so much. I have to go find it now. Thanks! HUGS

[mary]

Mary... you just reminded me of a worship song that I love so much. I have to go find it now. Thanks! HUGS

Yep, ((((Amy)))) - I know. We sing it at that Messianic synagogue quite often... :D

mary

[InTheory]

Good topic, Voyager.

I now realize in my life that ANY belief system that people try to sell that uses fear (and most do) is not anything that I want to get close to!

:)

-Dan

[DiligentLily]

Hey, Willow, I was gone for a while and just realized that I missed your beautiful eye!

[Elisabeth]

Wow, yes! God has not given us a spirit of fear.:D Fear was what kept me in the spiritually - sexually abusive situation I was in, and fear was what kept me from speaking out against the pastor once I left. Fear is what has kept me from giving my "all" to God. I just found this forum today, and I love it!:D

[SJPEERYVA85]

I found that fear caused me to want to run back to the legalistic SA church I was in for over 10 years. I started going to a healthy church after that and was amazed at the debate that was going on. It scared me to see people disagreeing with each other. At times I wanted to go back to the "safe place" that was my former church. The pastors opinion on everything was the only opinion being discussed there.
I had a great support system at my new church and would talk to them about my flight feelings. Everytime I wanted to fly back to the "safe" church, they would talk to me and help me to see how controlling the old church was and how that is NOT safe!!

Eventually it passed, but it took a couple of years, really. Fear makes us do and think things, that we would not otherwise.

[Reg]

As many people here know, I rarely ever quote Scriptures on this forum. But recently someone stated that they were fearful of coming onto this forum, so I thought it might be a good topic to bring up for discussion. I would hate to see fear steal anyone away from the healing and recovery that is here for them.

Fear and guilt are the two primary forces that work together to create a spiritually abusive environment. Last week I posted something on guilt. Fear is actually the more powerful of the two. Fear is what hooks us into the spiritual abuse to begin with. While we are in a spiritually abusive group, we hear messages of fear over and over, telling us that if we leave "God's will" (aka the church) that Satan will take over our families, finances, relationships, etc. We are taught that if we leave "the covering" of the abusive leader, Satan will destroy us. This is how we get locked into a spiritually abusive relationship, and it doesn't stop there. The entire time we were in these groups, we were being continually programmed with fear. This is why many of us found ourselves bound with fear, panic attacks, anxiety, and even depression after leaving the group. It can take years to get deprogrammed of this fear.

I don't believe we should be scared of Satan ruling this forum. I am so glad to be free from fear-based religion, and a lot of my recovery happened right here on this forum. For 12 long years I was programmed to live in fear that Satan could strike at any time and wreck everything in my life. I was taught to stay away from "the world" and anything that wasn't Christian. However, all that did was create fear and anxiety in me. It took a LONG time for me to get healed of this fear, and I am sure that I still have a ways to go yet. When I first escaped my former abusive church, I was so scared to be cast out into "the world" with no "covering" that I had panic attacks. I was bound with anxiety. I looked at the world as if it were Satan's playground, and I feared that I would be vulnerable to his attacks now that I had left my former pastor's "authority and protection".

Is that how God wants us to live? Did He give us a spirit of fear? No!!! 1st John 4:18 tells us:



I don't think anyone needs to fear being on this forum. On the contrary, this forum has actually helped me heal and recover from the fear that was instilled in my heart due to the teachings of fear-based religion. Romans 8:15 tells us that, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of sonship." We are His people! He will never leave us or forsake us. 2nd Timothy 1:7 tells us:

[/b]

God has given us power over Satan, power over fear, power over hatred, and power over spiritual abuse. This doesn't mean that bad things won't happen, but it does mean that we don't have to live in fear of them happening!

This is a good, safe, and friendly place to find healing from spiritual abuse. At the same time, it may not be for everyone. There are many people here who share a lot of different styles of faith that all came from various denominations. It would be almost impossible for us all to believe the same way unless we appointed a spiritual dictator to enforce a specific belief system, and I don't think Jerry is up to the task (LOL!).

Any thoughts?

:cool:
Great thread John.

This is one of my favourite scriptures.

2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

On the contrary re Satan. I think he's the one who avoids this place because we have the truth and God's blessing. With the many wise ones here, he can be spotted very quickly. He's most likely more fearful of us than we may believe. ;)